1. Throw away your junk mail without looking at it. If you are like most Americans you will get invitations to apply for new credit every week. Some of these forms come filled out with all your personal information already, all you need to do is sign your name. If you don’t shred the form before you throw it away, you make sure that anyone who looks through the garbage can get a credit card in your name by simply signing the form and changing the mailing address.
2. Throw your banking and credit card statements in the garbage. Why waste time shredding your credit card information before you throw it in the garbage. You don’t need them anymore. That way you can ensure that the guy who steals your bag of garbage before the truck comes can see what all your credit cards are, where you shop, what the secret pin number is, your birthday and bank balances. Then it is easy to just log on and start buying things under your name.
3. Give your personal information to anyone who calls you. If someone calls you and the phone says they are from the bank, just believe them. It’s not like they could simply change the caller idea and pretend they are the bank, right? So the next time someone calls and says that you won a new car in a lottery and you just need to verify your identity with your credit card information, just tell them what they want to know.
4. Follow links in emails to log into your bank account. Sooner or later you will get an email claiming to be from you bank saying that you may have been the victim of identity theft and that you need to log in to your account to see if all your money was stolen. When you do, just follow the link to the strange log-in page and enter all your private banking information. This makes sure that the people who are stealing your banking information don’t have to hack into Home Depot to do it. You can just give it to them directly.
5. Collect your money from the late Nigerian General. Tomorrow when you get the email from General Motumboo Bumbooby and saying that he is willing to give you 10% of his $100,000,000 fortune if you help him smuggle it out of his country, give him your bank account information. You can trust him, after all, he is a general and he promised that he would give you $10 million. How could you turn that down someone in need?
6. Use your credit card at every ATM without looking for skimming machine. When you need money, just use the closest machine. If you see something that is covering the card slot, just use it anyway. As long as the card goes in, you should be fine. Whoever put the skimmer on the bank machine will be able to come back in a few hours and pick it up along with the camera or extra keypad that was used to get your pin code. Then they just order a new card in your name from their Chinese supplier and withdraw the rest of your money.
7. Give your credit card to the gas attendant or waiter. Sometimes it is hard for the clerk to memorize all the numbers on your credit card in just a few seconds at the till. Make sure you give them your credit card so they can go into the other room and write it down, along with the code on the back so they can make online purchases. And when you do get to enter your pic code, do it right in front of them so that they can easily see it.
8. Download free apps that put dancing babies or gorillas on your computer desktop. Don’t worry about what else was installed with it. You wouldn’t want to interfere with the person’s malware that they installed on your computer to track your keystrokes. That way it can record every button you press: C-I-T-Y-B-A-N-K-.-C-O-M-[ENTER] J-B-R-O-W-N-E-[TAB]M-Y-S-E-C-R-E-T-P-A-S-S-W-O-R-D. There. Now he can log into your bank account too. No more wondering if he knows your password. Now you can be sure he knows it!
9. Never update your anti-virus software. It can be hard for that cyber-criminal to access your computer if you update your antivirus software every month. Just stop updating it for a while and you can be sure that anyone can get access to your computer with a Trojan. Then they can look at your documents where you keep all your passwords written down, read your emails with all your other passwords and get access to anything else that you do on your computer.
10. Put as much personal information as you can on your social media page. Make sure that if a stranger wants to know your birthday, mother’s maiden name, children’s names, work and home addresses and phone numbers, that they don’t have to work for it. Facebook and Twitter are great ways to broadcast all of your personal information to the world for anyone to see.
And a bonus tip:
11. When you see suspicious activity on your bank or credit card account, don’t report it! If you notice that someone has stolen your credit card number and is making illegal purchases, don’t tell anyone. If you tell your bank or the police, they might stop the criminal from taking all your money. Let them have it all, because, once you have nothing left, you have nothing left to lose.
Featured image credit: FLICKR
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015
